


Wandering, Wondering

by eleanor_lavish, thepsychicclam



Series: Valiant Effort [2]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:36:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepsychicclam/pseuds/thepsychicclam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Introduction to Dominic Monaghan, small time drug dealer and bassist for Valiant Effort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wandering, Wondering

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the "Valiant Effort" storyverse, an AU created by eleanor_lavish and thepsychicclam. The boys are part of a band in NYC. The stories are all part of the same storyverse, but not one long story. They are independant, but interrelated ficlets.
> 
>  
> 
> Written by EL.

Dominic Monaghan was lost. Again.

Not that he was worried, mind you, because this was New York, and if he wandered in any direction long enough, he would inevitably come to a subway stop that would take him back home. But home was one place Dom preferred not to be. It was full of clothes and beer bottles and equipment for shows, and bodies. Too many bodies in one small apartment. Dom sometimes looked around and thought the Irish immigrants who had come before him must have lived like this, with four people packed into three small rooms, the detritus of living becoming unbearable, pushing them all out into the streets. That must have been why there were so many Irish street gangs in New York—everyone was just looking for reasons to stay outside.

For now, Dom was content to wander the bowery walking from Chinatown into Little Italy, and into Chinatown again, their borders now blurred as Chinatown threatened to swallow the tailors and ristorantes with markets and dim sum shops. Dom loves this area because he is able to get lost down here, where the streets are old and twisted, the pattern of streets and avenues dissolving into utter chaos. He wanders for hours listening to the babble of voices-- of vendors hocking anything one could imagine, tourists trying not to act scared shitless, Chelsea boys trying to find cheap designer clothes.

Dominic Monaghan was a drug dealer.

He didn’t really have the look, or the training for any real job in New York, which was a problem in terms of immigration until Ian put him on the books at the club. Ian did it as a favor to Elijah, Dom knew, and so he was always careful not to deal in or around Ian’s club, out of deference. He had dabbled in being a middle man back in Manchester and again in London when money was tight, but in New York money was always tight, and Dom had somehow become a minor underground figure in his local drug scene. He sold club drugs like speed, X, and K, but mostly pot. Never meth, cause that had killed his friend Alex back in Glasgow, and never anything hard like cocaine or heroin. Not that those would sell in his neighborhood anyway.

He wasn’t proud of it, but it worked for now, and the Big Break would come along any second and he could stop and move on. He was good at what he did, was menacing but not too much, was friendly but never made friends, could read a deal from a hundred yards and could sprint like a track star. It was actually more dangerous then he let on to the band, and he had narrowly escaped the cops on a few occasions and a small turf war on another. He tried not to sell from their apartment, usually dealing in alleys or clubs or dark bars. Dark but public enough to avoid getting his ass killed. He took all his calls on his cell and did plenty of daytime deliveries. He left the flat after rush hour to “do some shit” almost daily and didn’t return until practice.

They all knew what he did, of course. Amazingly, Billy wasn’t the worrier when it came to Dom’s “job”. They had both grown up poor and small and wily, and Billy knew for damn certain that Dom could take care of himself. It was Orlando who fretted and yelled and threatened whenever Dom came home with so much as a scraped elbow. He worried for Dom, but also for the band, and Dom had gotten enough “Fuck this up and I’ll fuck you up” lectures from Orli to last him a lifetime. Elijah didn’t say much about it either way, but Dom suspected he was as intrigued as he was worried about what Dom did with his days. He asked to come along a few times, but Dom always shrugged him off as being bad for business. Elijah was quiet, and fast, but his eyes got him into trouble. Dom had the dealer’s habit of looking shifty, squinting as if to say “I’ve no clue what’s going on, and I’ve no idea what you look like”. It’s a look that comforts those nervous about illegal activities. But Elijah always looked like he knew way more than he did, and his eyes startled most people. Dom included.

So Dom pretty much just wandered the streets, cell in hand and stash in his shoulder bag, while Billy worked and Orli slept off another nasty shift. When he did stay home, too hung over from the night before to move, he was left with Elijah, blowing off yet another class, who hovered and laughed with his too-girlish laugh and stared with his too-pretty eyes. Elijah was the baby they had adopted into the family, and Dom can’t believe they ever existed without him. He ever existed with him. Elijah was the missing piece in the group, and in Dom. But no way would he ever admit it.

Dominic Monaghan was going to be a rock star.

He knew it. He could feel it in his fucking bones. He knew because he could taste it every time he picked up his bass. He knew because every song they wrote was better than the one before. He knew because Billy was leading them and he would follow Billy into the depths of hell.

If Elijah Wood was Dom’s missing piece, Billy Boyd was his compass. He had met Billy through Orlando and had been instantly drawn in to the Scotsman’s easy wit and passion and drive. Billy was going places and Dom would be damned if he was going to be left behind. So he left Manchester for Glasgow, and Glasgow for London, and London for New York fucking City. And it was a bumpy road, and they were poor, but Billy was always right, because without New York they would have no Elijah.

Dominic Monaghan could fall in love with Elijah Wood.

But no way would that happen. Rock stars didn’t tie themselves down to waifish boys with big blue eyes. Rock stars didn’t get involved in serious relationships before they hit it big. Dom knew that fame brought money and offers and temptations and sex. Dom was going to savor it ALL, revel in it. He was never good at avoiding temptation, and didn’t give a shit about rules or limits or the right thing. If Billy was the talent and Orli was the pretty one and Elijah was the waif, then Dom was the bad boy. He had fourteen tattoos, eight piercings, and not one shirt without a hole in it. Dom had never given a shit what society thought of him, mainly because he had always been the short, funny-looking guy who got his arse kicked on football fields after school. Society was “those fuckers” and Dom really like to piss “those fuckers” off. It didn’t hurt that being an asshole got him laid more often, by Goth girls in too much eyeliner and lost boys with sunken eyes and leather pants.

Elijah was a kink in his plans. Which made Dom smile because kink and Elijah brought up all sorts of lovely images. Dom tried his best to stay away but sometimes he couldn’t help himself. He knew Elijah was there for the taking, and, as he was so bad with temptation anyway, he sometimes tried to placate his romantic side with a kiss, or a well-placed word, or a grope in a closet. But it could never go any further, because if he ever had Elijah completely, he would never be able to let him go.

Dom didn’t know how the fuck Billy and Orlando managed to do—whatever the FUCK they were doing. They weren’t together, but they were, they slept together but they didn’t, they could see other people, but neither of them had. It was like they were in perpetual relationship limbo, and Dom watched them orbit each other but never quite touch. It seemed to work for them, though Dom kept having these nightmare images of the two of them finally losing balance and teetering off the edge. Dom and Elijah weren’t in any orbit. Elijah was like that ball attached to a paddle by a rubber band—the harder Dom pushed him away, the faster he would come back, smacking into Dom and causing him to wince.

It hurt to be around him, and it hurt not be around him, so Dom embraced his heathen lifestyle and drank and smoked up and fucked a lot of girls and a number of boys and cursed all the time and ran from the cops and basically tried to remind himself that THIS was what he was living for. The rock star life. And he tried not to wonder what sort of empty life it was if he didn’t get to kiss Elijah Wood daily.

~Fin


End file.
